This is Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. Here is the news.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for closer China-U.S. cooperation in developing the next-generation nuclear power technology. Premier Li made the remarks when he met with Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and chairman of the new reactor design company TerraPower.Li spoke highly of the China-U.S. partnership in this field, saying companies of the two countries have set up a joint venture with each holding half of the shares. The two sides have also agreed to share the intellectual property rights.TerraPower has signed a joint venture agreement with the China National Nuclear Corporation to form the "Global Innovation Nuclear Energy Technology Company". The two sides plan to work together to complete designing the "Travelling Wave Reactor" and commercialize the technology.Premier Li said this is a pioneering work in China-U.S. high-tech cooperation, which is on a voluntary basis; and this shows the open attitudes of both sides. He expected win-win results in the cooperation.Bill Gates acknowledged the significance of the next-generation nuclear power in the development of future energy technology. He said it is important to ensure the energy supply is clean, safe and reliable.This is Special English.In an apple orchard owned by Auvil Fruit Company in northwestern U.S. city of Wenatchee, a dozen workers were picking the best Granny Smith apples that will reach Chinese consumers in less than three weeks.Wenatchee, known in the United States as the "Apple Capital", might not be a familiar name for Chinese, but the red delicious, gala, granny smith and many more apple species the city produces have already been very popular among Chinese consumers.China has become one of Auvil's biggest overseas markets for its apples and cherries in recent years since the company learned about the B2C platform Tmall.Take the granny smith apples for example, they will be sent to the processing factory for selection, packaging and inspection, before being shipped through ocean freight to importers in China. Importers will then repackage the apples and sell them both online and offline.Chris McCarthy, CEO of Auvil, says they view China as a huge opportunity for their fruit. Partly thanks to Tmall, Auvil now has strong brand recognition in China with the Gee Whiz yellow box varieties, which is the company's premium products.McCarthy said Chinese consumers value high quality fruit and flavor, which is something they strive to grow and provide, adding that the company can always accommodate Chinese consumers' needs.Auvil is a member of Washington Apple Commission which promotes the state's apple products to 25 countries around the world. Every apple Auvil produces has the label of "Washington state apple". The commission now has 1,260 member growers around the state and many packaging and shipping companies. It has been promoting the apples from its member growers through Tmall since November 2013.The sales volume of Washington state apples on Tmall grew more than 100 percent every year since.During Tmall's Singles' Day sale event in November 2015, more than 1 million gala apples from Washington State were sold in just 24 hours. Thanks to the convenient e-commerce platform, the state's various kinds of apple products have been known to the Chinese market.China has become one of the top five markets for Washington apples. The commission hopes to expand the Chinese market further in the future.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. China has launched two new satellites into space to support its global navigation and positioning network.The satellites were aboard a single carrier rocket which took off from a satellite launch center in southwest China.These are the first two satellites in a series launched by China. The event marks a milestone, as China's self-developed navigation satellite system has become part of the global network.China plans to build the system into a global positioning and navigation system by around 2020. If successful, China will become the third country in the world to be able to operate its own navigation system, after the United States and Russia.This is Special English.U.S. experts say China has a very good workable intellectual property protection system, which is different from the U.S. system, yet right and appropriate for China.A senior U.S. professional told China's Xinhua News Agency that the problem most Western brand owners have is not that the Chinese have a bad system, but that the brand owners often don't know how to make that system work.William Mansfield is IP director at ABRO Industries, which is based in South Bend, Indiana and has been in the business for 75 years. The company makes non-electronic consumer goods including glue, tape and engine oil. Around half of its products are manufactured in America and the other half are manufactured in China under the brand name ABRO.After entering the Chinese market in 2008, the company started manufacturing more and more in China, and selling more in China over the last five to seven years. The company has opened its first overseas branch office in Beijing and hired Chinese employees.You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. The last ship ever built at a century-old shipyard in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has rolled down the slipway into the waters of the Pearl River.The Guangzhou Shipyard International has bid farewell to its last ship, a 50,000-deadweight-ton oil production vessel. And the shipyard is moving to a new site in the city's New Zone which neighbors Hong Kong and Macao.The old shipyard was set up by an overseas businessman in 1914, when it started out building small ships before expanding to construct giant vessels.Industry heavyweights spoke highly of the achievements the old shipyard has made in the economic development of the city and its contribution to coastal security in the South China Sea.China's famous navy hospital ship, the Peace Ark, was built by the shipyard in 2008. It is still in service for the navy and the maritime industry.This is Special English.China has built more than 800,000 highway bridges and over 10,000 kilometers of high-speed railway bridges.Transport authorities said there were 800,000 highway bridges across China at the end of last year. China also owns at least half of the world's top 10 cable-stayed, suspension, arch and beam bridges with the longest main spans.China had completed 22,000 kilometers of high-speed railway lines as of last year, and bridges accounted for over half of that length.The total length of China's high-speed rail will reach 38,000 kilometers by 2025, and 45,000 kilometers by 2030.There are also 135 bridges crossing the main course of the Yangtze River, the world's third and Asia's longest river. Thirty-two of them are under construction. You're listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing. You can access the program on our Apple Podcast. Now the news continues.China's central bank governor says further measures are needed to rein in financial sector risks.The governor says deepened reform and opening-up are the key measures to proactively control systematic risks in China's financial sector. The risks are promoted by overall coordination between regulatory institutions.The official said the general situation in China's financial sector is sound, but he warned that it will be in a period with high and easy-to-break-out risks.He made the remarks in a statement on the website of the People's Bank of China. The governor said the risks were especially high in terms of a high-leveraging ratio and liquidity, arising from over-borrowing by non-financial sectors, resulting in the high local government debt burden while fueling price bubbles in the equity and real estate markets. This is Special English.Chinese enterprises have continued to award scholarships to poor students in Uganda so that the students can pursue their secondary education.The full scholarships are provided by a Chinese housing enterprise in Uganda. The enterprise says the scholarships are part of the Chinese enterprises' dedication to fulfilling social responsibility by funding academically excelling students who are financially disadvantaged.The project has helped a total of 155 students in central Uganda in the past five years. An official at the Chinese Embassy in Uganda said he hopes the scholarships will contribute to the economic and human resource development in the East African country.You are listening to Special English. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing.A 300-meter self-closing flood barrier, the longest in the world, is being built in the historical fishing harbor of Spakenburg in central Netherlands. This is the latest addition to the low-lying country's innovative approach in flood protection.An official from the Dutch Flood Protection Program says the flood barrier is an example of tailor-made solutions the Netherlands develops to protect vulnerable areas, especially urban areas. He said it is a task which could not be done with traditional dike reinforcements.Witnessed by locals, water officials and journalists, the barrier came out of the ground and rose to the planned height of 80 centimeters in about 20 minutes as water was pumped from the small port into a kind of "pockets" underneath to help with the process. When deactivated, the barrier disappears into the pavement. Only the steel top that stretches around the harbor is visible. The construction costs 7 million euros, three times more than a traditional dike.This is Special English.The Scots may well have codified golf as we know it, including, after a few false starts, making it a game of 18 holes. But the jury is still out on who first came up with the idea of an open-air game that involves using a stick to hit a ball towards a target. The Romans played a game in which a ball stuffed with feathers and wool was hit with a bent stick, while the Dutch played a stick-and-ball game called colf as early as the 13th century.But the most intriguing, and in many ways convincing, documented evidence of an early version of golf comes from China. A game called chuiwan, or hitting the ball, became popular in the Song dynasty around 1,000 years ago. The game was featured in paintings as late as the Ming dynasty 360 years ago. Players used ten clubs to hit wooden balls towards brightly colored flags. They had a club for long distances, a precursor of the modern-day driver, and the tee was called the ji, or base in Chinese.There was even an early equivalent of the R and A Rules of Golf, the Classic of the Ball, published 700 years ago. It lays out the rules and places great emphasis on sportsmanship and correct behavior, echoes of modern golf, where etiquette is such an important element of the game. The game seems to have died out in China during the Qing dynasty which ended in 1912, while golf as we know it today was first played in Scotland in the 15th century. This is the end of this edition of Special English. To freshen up your memory, I'm going to read one of the news items again at normal speed. Please listen carefully.This is the end of today's program. I'm Ryan Price in Beijing, and I hope you can join us every day, to learn English and learn about the world.